


witherings

by moriphyte



Series: how sad a flower [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriphyte/pseuds/moriphyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”<br/>-Anaïs Nin</p><p>People wither just like flowers, life dries them out, rots them, and with each problem a petal falls until the person is left as nothing but a stem and the empty center of a flower, the core of something that was once beautiful, and though you may try to glue the petals back on a flower, it is not possible, but for people there may be a way, they won't be the same as before, but if there is any way to put them back, you have to at least try</p>
            </blockquote>





	witherings

**Author's Note:**

> Terezi goes over to John and Dave's apartment to get away from Gamzee  
> I got the quote from Criminal Minds, shout out to my boy SSA Aaron Hotchner

People wither just like flowers, life dries them out, rots them, and with each problem a petal falls until the person is left as nothing but a stem and the empty center of a flower, the core of something that was once beautiful, and though you may try to glue the petals back on a flower, it is not possible, but for people there may be a way, they won't be the same as before, but if there is any way to put them back, you have to at least try 

You're tired  
But what else is new  
You sit up in your mess of a bed, stretching your bare arms above your head  
You let your arms fall to the mess of sheets and sigh  
There's that feeling in your body, like you can't move, your veins are filled with congealed coffee and you need the drug of the caffein to kick in so you can manage the energy to get out of bed  
Finally with a deep shaky breath you sit up in bed and put your feet on the cold wooden floor  
Beside you in bed, Dave is asleep, curled under his snoop dog weed blanket with his phone held loosely in his hand  
On the other side of the room John is asleep, his glasses still on and they're crooked on his face and slipping down his nose  
You lean over and press the home button on Dave's phone to check the time  
7:35am  
You push yourself up off the mattress and pad across the room to where one of Daves sweaters is laying in a mess on the floor  
You pull it on over your shirt and go looking around for your leggings  
You find them in the mess of sheets on the mattress and pull them on  
Fuck it's cold in here  
On your way into the kitchen you stop and turn up the thermostat  
Fuck the electric bill, it's not like you pay it anyway  
You pad over to the chipping white fridge and pull open the door, causing it to shake  
You lean over and scan the blurry contents of the fridge  
You grab a half empty carton of orange juice from the door and a bagel and cream cheese from the middle shelf  
You pad across the cold linoleum floor peeling under your feet and take a knife from inside the sink and take a seat at the shitty little plastic table  
You pop open the lid of the cream cheese and stick out your younger  
John got jelly in the cream cheese again, fuckin nasty  
You wipe the knife off on your shirt and avoid the jelly as you scrape out some cream cheese and smear it on the bagel  
Dave already toasted it a few days ago and burnt it so he left it in the fridge which makes it fair game  
It's a little crunchy and burnt but you don't care as you take a bite, causing burnt crumbs to fall into the scratched up white surface of the table  
You eat the rest of the bagel, washing it down with orange juice straight from the carton, and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand  
You look back at the digital clock on the stove  
7:58  
Dave should be waking up soon, usually he's the first one up, mostly because he just doesn't get much sleep, but he must actually be having a good sleep for once  
Expecting him to be up within the next fifteen minutes, you start a pot of coffee and turn on the tv  
You hear him walking around the bedroom as you flip through the channels  
"Mornin Tez" Dave says from behind you  
"Sup coolkid" you say, not looking up from the tv  
"You want some coffee?" He asks, pouring some in his favorite jpeg dick mug that Rose made him for their birthday  
"Nah, I'm good. Bring the orange juice over though" you call over your shoulder  
A few minutes later he walks over with his mug of coffee and hands you the carton of orange juice  
"Thanks"  
You say as he plops down on the futon beside you  
Usually when you stay over Dave sleeps on the futon not to wake you and John up in the middle of the night with his unpredictable sleep, most of the time he doesn't even bother unfolding it, but he's been getting better sleep lately  
"What we watchin?" he asks, taking a sip of coffee and reaching into a box of Coco Puffs sitting beside him  
He always eats his cereal dry because they usually don't have milk in the house and he says he likes it better  
You shrug as you continue to flip through the channels  
"I don't know, whatever you want, I'm feeling cartoons, or bad reality shows"  
He grins at you, "fuck yeah, cartoons or shitty reality shows?"  
He's not wearing his shades and in the dim light of the apartment you can see his eyes, they look less tired than usual, bruises of sleep faded against his pale skin  
"Let's just put on TLC and watch whatever's on, we always watch cartoons in the morning"  
He nods and you put on TLC. My Strange Addiction is on, which is one of Dave's favorites, and you spend the next hour or so stuffing your faces and watching. There's the girl that eats cat food, the guy who's sexually attracted to his car, and the dude who collects sex dolls. Dave likes the last one the best  
"I think I'm going to take up collecting sex dolls" he says  
You laugh and bump your shoulder against his, "why would you even need one?"  
"I appreciate them ascetically" he says  
"Fuckin weirdo" you say  
"This is coming from the person who eats chalk" he says  
You shrug, "it's good"  
"Pretty sure there's a My Strange Addiction about that" he says  
"I should totally go on that show" you say  
"That would be fuckin awesome, I would be one of your concerned friends afraid that your strange addiction is hurting you" he says  
You tense and look down, you already have an addiction, and it's hurting you more than he knows  
You've been covering the bruises, but you know he knows  
Thankfully he hasn't said anything about it, he didn't even ask why you came to stay with him and John  
It doesn't matter though, you're going to leave soon. Gamzee will be pissed if you're gone to long, especially if he finds out you were with Dave  
He's been messaging you but you haven't responded, not ready to deal with him. Right now all you want to do is sit with Dave and watch tv  
John wakes up around 8:30am and joins you on the couch  
You spend the rest of the day watching various reality tv shows  
Around the afternoon you find a Law and Order SVU marathon on and spend the rest of the night watching it  
Dave falls asleep leaning on John and you boy get up carefully as not to disturb him  
You grab a pillow from the floor and a blanket hanging to one of the kitchen chairs and cover him with it  
"You coming to bed?" John asks, yawning  
You glance at Dave and then back at him, "yeah I'll be in in a while"  
"Okay, night looser" he says, waving and padding to the bedroom  
You flip him off and stand in the middle of the kitchen for a while, unsure of what to do  
Eventually you find yourself sitting on the kitchen floor, leaning back against the stove  
You pull your knees up to your chest and rest you chin on your arms, watching the blue light from the window on the dirty linoleum floor  
Someone really needs to clean this place  
You're starting to feel sick, without Dave to distract you you can't stop thinking about Gamzee  
You told him you were going to Vriska's but you never even planned on it, Vriska isn't really talking to you right now and you would never tell him where you actually were, that would put you and everyone else in danger  
You don't know what to do, you're stuck in between, like that strange feeling you get when you walk around the city at night, or sit outside the gas station in the rain  
You feel like you're going to throw up  
You push up the sleeves of your shirt and look down at your arms in the dim light  
Bruises, some dark some light, scars, some healed some fresh  
The bruises are from Gamzee, the scars are from you  
He wasn't happy when he found them, said he didn't want you to hurt, and in his fucked up world the only way to get you to stop was to give your more bruises  
That worked about as well as anyone but him would think  
He can get as angry as he wants, you're not doing anything for him, no matter what  
You sigh and pull down your sleeves, looking up at the window  
It's freezing rain outside and slush is slowly building up in the pains of the window  
Among the shit on the window sill is a potted plant that you think Rose gave them when they moved in  
Predictably they forgot to water it, and now it has dried, withered, lost all of its petals but a few. The petals gather in the dry dirt around the base of the stem and crack and rot  
You want to give it water, but like you you don't think it will work  
You can water it as much as you want, but all that will do is flood it, rot it  
You are drowning, you are rotting, You don't know if you can come back from it and you don't know if you want to but if there is any way, you have to at least try


End file.
